A Quiet Walk in the Noonday Heat
by Elin B
Summary: A somewhat surreal, Zoro-centric fic in which the swordsman is wandering around an unfamiliar city while in the company of talking birds. Post-EL, with eventual spoilers for early Thriller Bark as well. Rated high for strong language. Epilogue added.
1. A Town of Sand and Silence

Disclaimer: The characters of One Piece were created by Eiichiro Oda and is owned by him and Shueisha Publications. They are used here without permission. This fanfic may not be used for profit.

Spoilers for Water 7/Enies Lobby. Takes place after those events. NOTE: Chapter 5, the final chapter, also contains spoilers for early Thriller Bark.

Constructive criticism and other feedback would be quite appreciated.

A Quiet Walk in the Noonday Heat  
A One Piece fanfic by Elin B

Chapter 1, A Town of Sand and Silence

-In which there is urban exploration and avian conversation.

The street was long and narrow, worn-down and dusty. Dead leaves and sand filled up the gutters where they were easily swept up and tumbled around by hot winds passing by now and then. The houses of the street looked oddly flat in the broiling sunlight. It was very quiet and completely empty.

Sometimes the distant buzzing of bees could be picked up, but the only other sounds were the rustling of leaves and the wanderer's soft footsteps. It felt like some time early in the afternoon.

Zoro had no idea what kind of town this was nor any recollection of how he had gotten here. He was pretty used to finding himself somewhere else than he'd intended to be, but usually not to this extent. He'd ask about it, if he could only find someone to ask. All the streets he'd seen had been just as deserted as this one.

Still, he had a feeling there was something he needed to do here, someone he had to fight. If only he could find the right place for it… But all these streets looked much the same, with their dust and sand and emptiness, and he wasn't even sure whether this was the right time. Maybe the fight would not be until tomorrow. Maybe it should have happened yesterday and he was already too late… Perhaps he ought to run in order to get there in time, but there seemed to be little point to that. And the air in this afternoon heat felt thick and sluggish all around him.

In many of the streets there were stretches of high stone walls that hid the buildings behind them from view. He stopped below one of them – an old mossy thing with big rough-hewn stones – to look down an alley that opened up on the other side. At that moment, he heard an excited flutter of wings and looked up to see a smallish bird with unruly black feathers landing on top of the wall.

The bird opened its beak and started to talk to him, asking him where he was going and what he was trying to do and if he was feeling okay or what. Zoro gave it a wary look and didn't say anything. Maybe he'd gone crazy enough to hear birds talking, but he was not going to act even crazier by talking back.

For some reason he couldn't put his finger on, he felt the bird looked quite a bit like Luffy. But then it twisted its head and took a little jump to one side and suddenly looked more like Usopp. Weird thing. Zoro turned his head, looking up and down the street for possible enemies and also, now, for hungry cats on the prowl.

When he turned back there really were two black birds on the wall - maybe one had been sitting behind the other, before? And a third bird had shown up as well, a more colourful, tropical-looking kind. It was mostly orange, with its breast a bluish gray, its wings and tail partly black, and it reminded him not a little of Nami. Sure enough, the orange bird started to boss around the black birds immediately. As she lifted her wings to scold them for something, he caught two circles of orange on black on the inside of each wing.

He waited to see if any other crewlike birds turned up. Logically there should be either a reindeerish bird or an idiot cook-bird next, but he could see no trace of them, nor of the other two. Nothing else appeared over the high wall, nothing came flying above the rooftops, and the streets were as quiet and empty as before.

"So here you are," said one black bird.

"So here you are. Really," echoed the other.

"What do you think you are doing?" the orange bird wanted to know. "Why are you so far away from your crew?"

Zoro glared at her but didn't say anything.

"He won't answer you," the Usoppian black bird told the orange bird smugly.

"Won't answer us, either," nodded the Luffyesque one.

Zoro started to walk off in a random direction. The three birds followed, flying above him. He had rather feared they would.

"I guess you're prejudiced against birds, eh, Mr Swordsman?" the Nami-like bird said sharply.

"Maybe he just wants an adventure by himself," said the Luffy-bird.

"Maybe he's hiding from something," said the Usopp-bird.

"Eh? Why would he hide?" asked the Nami-bird. "He's really strong, isn't he?"

"Yes, but he could still be afraid of something."

"Like what?"

"I dunno. He won't talk to us."

"I think he's going to challenge somebody!" exclaimed the Luffy-bird. "Some really tough swordsman who lives here!"

"Yeah, that makes sense…"

"Hm. I suppose…"

The birds were quiet for a moment or two. Straining his ears to the limit, Zoro thought he could hear the sound of faint snoring from somewhere. An open window, perhaps. That meant there were people inside the houses at least, even if they wouldn't get out in the streets. Could it be that they were all scared of something – him, maybe? Or were they simply staying out of the midday heat?

"But if that's what he's doing," said the orange bird, "don't you think he's abandoning his crewmates? After all, they might get into trouble while he's blundering about here…"

"Maybe so, but he's following his dream!" said one of the black birds (Zoro couldn't tell which one). "And that's always a good thing, right?!"

The other black bird agreed emphatically, while the orange bird muttered something about depending on the way you went about it. Zoro did his best to try and zone them out.

xxxxx

As he crossed a small bridge, he thought for a moment he could hear music from somewhere far away, a melancholy flutelike sound. About ten meters below him the sludgy green waters of a mostly dried-out canal trickled languidly, flanked by debris and stinking in the way sewers in summer tended to stink. A clock he couldn't see struck once. It was quarter past something, he supposed.

xxxxx

The sand and heat reminded him of Albana and other Alabastan towns, but the buildings didn't look much like what he could remember from there. Maybe more like Water 7? No, these houses didn't have those typical red rounded roofs of Water 7. A bit like Loguetown, then, he decided, but pretty different too, with a particular flattened-out, mirage-like quality of its own. There was probably a harbour around somewhere, unless it was a completely landlocked city, like Albana. And maybe he would find the ship, if he went there. But turning around to go look for it didn't seem like the right thing to do. No matter what the orange bird said, there had to be a purpose to his coming here.

It occurred to Zoro to wonder vaguely if he might be walking into a trap. Perhaps he wasn't actually going to meet the skilled fighter he (and the birds) was picturing, but merely an assortment of enemies waiting to ambush him, marines or bountyhunters or rival pirates or ship-dismantling street gangs or some other kind of would-be troublemakers. That would be considerably less interesting, obviously, but it might still be something he was supposed to do here, to take care of those people before they could become a real threat.

Worthy opponent or not, the first attack might come in any street or alley, from any direction. But it seemed to Zoro most likely that it would happen in some large open square or piazza, with plenty of space at all sides. So far, however, he'd seen nothing like that around here. There were just streets and alleys and the odd bridge, with dusty brick buildings and endless stone walls. The few shops he'd passed had all been carefully boarded up.

The birds were still following him or flying slightly ahead, not getting thrown off in the least whenever he chose an unexpected direction. They were chattering among themselves right now. He really tried not to pay attention, but it was hard. So very few other sounds could be heard.

"I'm huuuuungryyy…" whined the Luffy-bird.

"You had about ten nice fat juicy worms not long ago," remarked the orange bird.

"That was HOURS ago!"

"More like ten minutes ago. Or less, even."

The Luffyesque bird gave a piteous cheep. "Isn't there a butcher's shop around here?"

"Not that I've seen," said the Usopp-bird. "And if there is it's probably locked up. Doesn't seem to be anyone about at all."

"And don't even think of diving into garbage cans on your own!" the Namilike bird said sharply. "You'll only eat something really rotten and get sick."

"No I won't! I never get sick!"

"Well, then you'll end up eaten by some big mean cat just because you weren't paying attention!"

"Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I beat ten vicious alley cats single-handedly, with one wing wounded to boot?…"

Suddenly, Zoro noticed a shadow high in the sky above them, something moving down at great speed. He froze for a fraction of an instant, then drew the Sandai Kitetsu and cut the descending hawk in half, without looking. He'd sheathed the sword again before the dead predator hit the ground.

The birds let out squawks of terror and surprise: the blade had passed very close to all of them. Zoro opened his mouth and came very close to telling them exactly what he thought of their pathetic instincts. What kind of small bird didn't know enough to freeze or hide when the shadow of a bird of prey passes over them? These idiots hadn't even noticed. But he managed to stop himself in time and merely give them a meaningful glare of disapproval, hoping that would be enough of a hint to get them to shape up.

But it didn't seem like it would. The birds flew excitedly here and there for a good while, and then they all settled down on his head and shoulders.

"So you won't talk to us, but you will protect us," remarked the Nami-bird, whom Zoro was starting to think of as 'N-bird'. "Well, that's nice of you."

The black birds agreed fervently, with the Usopp-bird – or 'U-bird' – sounding grateful while the Luffyesque 'L-bird' sounded enthusiastic. - Meanwhile, Zoro was thinking that the orchard on his left side looked slightly familiar. He couldn't have walked past here before, could he? Nah, it was probably just the local style in gardens.

"He's a very useful person, isn't he?" remarked the U-bird.

"Terribly useful," the N-bird agreed.

"And really cool, too," added the L-bird. "That sword stroke was just awesome!"

"Yep, he's sure handy to have around," said the N-bird. "But I bet his crew thinks the same way. And, may I point out again, he's not with them."

"Huh. Well, one would think that they _ought_ to think so," said U-bird thoughtfully, "but they might just take him for granted, you know? 'Cause sometimes people forget things like that, and don't know what they've got until they lose it."

The L-bird frowned. "But they're not going to _lose_ him!" it objected. "He's just wandering around on his own adventure right now. Anyway, if they're that stupid he can always stay here and hang out with us instead!" He grinned wider than a bird should be able to, then leaped up and started to circle around Zoro with enthusiasm.

"You're just gonna confuse him by all that flying around," said U-bird. "Confuse him even more, I mean. I never saw anyone going around so much in circles before."

"True, that." N-bird nodded. "He's even worse than you, L-bird, so take it easy," she advised.

A dry wind passed by, shaking down chestnuts from trees growing behind another stone wall that were leaning out over the street. The birds flew down to see if they were edible, and then had to do a lot of shouting and hurried flying in order to catch up with Zoro again, who hadn't slowed down.

xxxxx

Not too long after that he walked up a short flight of stairs and found himself on the second bridge. Underneath it, about twenty meters below, was the stony bed of a completely dry river. There were lots of driftwood and other debris on the riverbed and the banks, including a couple of rowboats and a rocking-chair. At the apex of the bridge, Zoro thought he could hear piano music, but again could not distinguish from where.

xxxxx

He came to a street where there were quite a few shops, all closed though not all of the windows had been boarded up. But even looking at the window-displays, it was rather hard to make out what kind of things they were selling. He only recognised a bakery and what was probably a shoemaker's shop, nothing else. Most of the stuff lying in the window-displays looked rather odd to his eyes, and there were no helpful signs. Maybe they were just souvenirs. Still, he liked seeing all the shops there: perhaps he really was moving towards the centre of the town, as he hoped.

"You know," N-bird said pensively, turning to look at Zoro's face while she spoke, "there's something I don't get… We're supposed to remind you of your crewmates, aren't we?"

"We are?" said U-bird.

"We do?" said L-bird.

"Of course we do! Don't interrupt me, you two!" She picked at them both in passing: they whined a bit. "Then why aren't there more of us?" N-bird continued. "Why only us three? Why only those people?"

Zoro had no idea of that, not that he would have said anything even if he did. But he wondered what the orange bird might mean by 'supposed to' – who exactly did the supposing? He wouldn't have thought she believed in anything like destiny or fate. Nami didn't, as far as he knew.

He did allow her an eloquent shrug, however. Somehow it seemed fair enough.

"Well, obviously we're the coolest ones," said U-bird, "at least I am – Ow! Stop picking at me, N-bird. It could be true!"

"Right!" said L-bird, nodding wisely. "Or maybe it's 'cause this guy's got such a bad memory and can only remember the ones who've been with him the longest!"

"Hm, that makes a bit more sense," said N-bird, "Well, I doubt it's memory loss, but possibly his span of attention is just a bit too short…"

"Nah, his captain is the one with the short attention span," objected U-bird, "'cause he's like L-bird, right? But Swords-guy here is the first mate or something, isn't he? He has to keep track of the whole crew; he's gotta be able to pay attention." (Zoro blinked slightly at that.)

"Well, maybe that's too much of an effort at times," suggested N-bird. "Maybe he'd like things to be simpler when he's dreaming."

Hey, wait a minute, Zoro wanted to say, since when did we decide I'm dreaming this? Of course, that did seem like a reasonable explanation when he thought about it, and he felt pleased that the talking birds were actually rational enough to understand how irrational their existence was (after all, there was only one Human Human fruit, so no other animals ought to be able to talk). But this really didn't feel like any kind of usual dream, where places and people shifted almost constantly while your mind tried to make some kind of sense out of it. This was much more stable. And it seemed to last a lot longer.

"If he _is_ dreaming," said U-bird, sounding doubtful as well. "I'm not too sure of that. But if so, then why are we here at all?" He beat his wings impatiently. "Or why isn't it just L-bird? He likes the captain best anyway, doesn't he?"

"Search me," said N-bird, shrugging.

"Nah, he wouldn't leave me here without someone to talk to," said L-bird, complete trust in his voice. "He's a nice guy."

"Yeah. I guess." The N-bird's voice sounded just a tiny bit dubious, and Zoro couldn't help but chuckle slightly, then nod in silent approval when N-bird went on to add, "He is a bit of a killer, though."

"Well, he's a nice killer," the L-bird summed up happily. The U-bird gave a short, nervous laugh.

There were a few moments' pause before N-bird opened her beak again.

"Hey, Mr Swordsman…" Ah, so she hadn't given up on trying to talk to him. "…Do you think it meant something that it was a hawk you just slew for us, and nothing else?"

"Huh? O-ho…" said U-bird slowly. "D'you really think so, N-bird?"

"What? Whaddya mean?" asked L-bird. There were a couple of whispers. "Oooh. You mean the guy he's gonna fight in this town is Mihawk Hawkeye, the greatest swordsman in the world?"

"Well, I'm not sure. It's a theory…" said N-bird cautiously.

"That's awesome! I wanna see that!" The L-bird raised his voice. "Hey, come out, Mihawk! Stop hiding!!"

"Actually," mumbled N-bird, "I was more thinking about what it might say about his subconscious…"

"Come on out, stupid hawk! You're in for the fight of your life!"

Zoro's hand shot out, clamping down on L-bird's beak. "Shut up," he said quietly.

They all froze and fell silent, staring at him.

"If he _is_ here somewhere and I can't avoid it, then of course I will fight him," Zoro continued, keeping his voice low but clear. "But you shouldn't try to call him here ahead of his time. I'm not sure I'm strong enough for him yet." A brief pause, while he wondered what the hell he'd just said. Dammit, he _knew_ he had far to go yet, there wasn't any "not sure" about it. It was just that…everything in this town seemed so strange and uncertain that it felt possible to wonder if somehow he'd exchanged his self for a later version, or had become someone slightly different, or might have come further along the road than he thought, without noticing. Like how he had wound up here without noticing – But it was a really stupid thought.

"I mean, I will _know_ when I'm ready, understand?" He shook the captainlike bird to and fro. "It would be an insult to Dracule Mihawk to challenge him again before that."

He gave the other two birds a heavy look as well, one that stopped just short of being a glare; and possible it was that very restraint that seemed to take them aback. Then he loosened his grip around L-bird's beak but didn't quite let go yet, and the bird wasn't struggling to break free. It kept itself still, staring at him with wide, unbirdy, Luffylike eyes.

"So I don't think he's the one I'm meant to face here," Zoro went on, without raising his voice. "But if you guys keep screaming about it, maybe you'll force him to come here. Force him to be that guy when he's not supposed to be." It didn't make much sense to think that, but this place didn't really make sense either. And while he felt a bit ashamed over finally having succumbed into talking to birds, trusting instinct over common sense had never shamed him.

He let go of the L-bird completely. It immediately flew over to where the Nami-bird sat, flapping its wings excitedly.

"Wahahaha! I won, I won!" he exulted. "Admit it, N-bird! I won this time! Right, U-bird?"

"Woohoo! First prize goes to L-bird!" shouted U-bird, also flapping his wings and flying around a good bit. "Good work! Man, I thought he'd never crack. Guess you'll have to write off his debts now, N-bird, eh? You did promise."

"Yeah, yeah, L-bird won," snapped N-bird, raising her chin haughtily. "Don't be so childish about it."

"I won I won I won!" sang L-bird, circling around in a way that made Zoro dizzy and also slightly alarmed: with the way it carried on, the black bird might fly smack into something, and it didn't look to be made out of rubber.

"Goddammit," he sighed, "why do the three of you have to be so bloody noisy?"

"I'm not noisy!" the N-bird objected immediately, and rather loudly.

"YES YOU ARE!" the black birds shouted in unison. Zoro didn't even bother glaring this time – he only held his hands over his ears and grit his teeth. But amazingly enough, when he next looked up the birds were quiet and actually seemed slightly abashed (well, insofar as the latter was possible for anyone Luffylike). And the next minute or so they all flew above him in virtual silence.

xxxxx

He passed the third bridge, which led across a street, dark and cramped far below him. There was a decent view over the nearest rooftops, but he couldn't see any big buildings that might hint of where the city centre was. There was no snatches of music this time, only a faint creak like you get from old houses, and what sounded like someone closing a window. When he glanced up in the sky, he saw what looked like a couple of vultures, far away, circling slowly above the rooftops.

The clock he couldn't see struck twice.

(To Be Continued)


	2. Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Chapter 2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For  
-In which a clue is found, and patience is lost.

He walked through narrow alleys – perfect for an ambush, as so much of this labyrinthine place was – and entered a tiny, dusty courtyard, where a decrepit wooden bench sat in the shadow of a big gnarled oak, and a stone fountain let out a tiny trickle of water. There was a huge crack running from one end of the fountain to another, and the water slowed to a stop completely just as Zoro and the birds passed by.

There should have been old folks sitting there, he thought, resting their legs in the shade, exchanging gossip and complaining about young people these days. It was exactly that kind of place. But the little courtyard was just as deserted as everything else.

For a moment he thought he could hear the sound of someone strumming a guitar. He tensed, straining his hearing to the limit, then slowly turned around and scrutinised the houses around him. As before, no sign of a movement, and the music had already stopped.

Well, it wasn't as if he had really expected his cyborg crewmate to suddenly step out from the nearest alley, guitar held high. After all, if Franky were here, he would most likely be a bird as well – Zoro pictured some kind of loud, half-mechanical parrot or cockatoo – and birds could hardly play the guitar.

As he left the square, something small and shiny rolled out from a passageway right in front of his path, just a few meters away.

"What – ?" he said, stopping. The birds made curious noises. Zoro glanced down the passageway – it was empty too, no surprises there – and then back to the small object on the ground. It was hard to make out; it shone and glittered so much, and it wouldn't keep still but kept bouncing and spinning around, either light enough to follow the merest whims of the faint breeze or somehow moving under its own power.

More than anything else, it looked like some kind of Clue. But what use was that, if you couldn't make out what it was supposed to be in the first place?

The birds were all a-twitter, fluttering about and shrieking in a confused, excited way.

"What is that?"

"Is it a log pose?"

"A caltrop?"

"An Atlas beetle?"

"Way too small for that…"

"…A _mystery _beetle!?"

"Wait, I see it now! It's a jewel! Woohoo! Quick, pick it up, Mr. Swordsman!"

"Hey, easy with the claws there, orangey," grumbled Zoro. "Anyway, it's a key." Now that he'd said it, he had to wonder why he hadn't seen it from the start. It was most definitely a small, white and sparkling key, although why it kept hopping around like that was more than he knew.

The birds blinked and looked at one another, and then down at the shiny object again. Then they mumbled things like "Yeah, okay, it might be at that," and "I guess. But a jewel would have been better," and "Wow, a beetle that turns into a key!"

"Hey, aren't you gonna pick it up?" prodded L-bird, hopping impatiently.

"If you don't want it, I can take it," offered N-bird sweetly.

Zoro gave her an extremely dry look. She blinked innocently and put her head to one side with a melodious chirp, like some kind of pet budgie. He suddenly felt damn glad he at least wasn't owing this version any money.

Then he muttered "Yeah, yeah, I will," to L-bird. Staring intently at the glittering, sparkly thing, he quickly bent down and scooped it up in one neat movement.

The small white key felt dry and strangely cold against his palm. He'd thought for a moment that it might be made out of bone, but bone shouldn't be so cold in this dusty heat. Enamel didn't seem right either. Maybe it was ivory? Though more likely some alloy he didn't even know of. Lying still in his hand, the key didn't sparkle as much as when it bounced in the sunny dust of the streets, but there was still a definite gleam to it.

However, it could hardly match the sparkles in the three sets of bird-eyes that were watching it avidly.

"What's it gonna open? What's it gonna open?" burbled L-bird excitedly, flying down to Zoro's hand briefly to take a closer look.

"Ooh, I bet it's gonna lead to a room full of treasure!" squealed N-bird. "Or, wait, maybe it opens up a treasure chest!"

"Sooo cool-looking!" said U-bird. "I wonder how it could move like that before. Think it opens any of the doors around here?"

Zoro glanced a second time around his rather boring surroundings and shook his head definitely.

"Hey Swords-guy, do you know where it leads, then?" asked L-bird.

Zoro shrugged. "No, but I'll know it when I see it," he said. He put the key in his pocket and trudged onwards, ignoring the disappointed sighs of the birds.

Shortly after that he heard a loud clanging sound right behind him. Zoro spun around, one sword already drawn, only to see a big lizard scuttle away up a brick wall. It had evidently tore down some of the vine covering most of the wall, then lost its grip and fallen down right on top of a pile of junk, causing that too to tumble down with a lot of noise. The lizard hastily vanished on the other side of the wall, but Zoro didn't pay it any heed. He was staring at what he was holding.

He didn't understand how it was that his hand had sought out the handle of Yubashiri, nor why he had drawn what should have been only its hilt and broken base. Only it wasn't. It was the entire blade made whole again, looking as hard and sharp as ever. There wasn't the slightest crack in it, not the merest hint of rust.

N-bird peered up at him curiously. "Something wrong, Mr Swordsman?" she asked.

"Yes," said Zoro, voice slightly hoarse. He cleared his throat and went on, hesitantly, "This thing should be broken. I saw it break. It was touched by a devil fruit user and shattered instantly into pieces. There's no way it could be whole again like this." His voice sounded strange to his ears, almost like it came from someone else.

"Well, are you sure it's the same one? Maybe you've picked up another sword somewhere looking similar," suggested N-bird.

"No, it's definitely the Yubashiri," muttered Zoro, feeling a bit dizzy. "And if you think I wouldn't remember something like that, you're crazy."

"It's grown back by itself," stated L-bird. "That's one great sword you've got. Are your other swords as cool as that?"

Zoro kept staring at the blade, shaking his head. "So is this really a dream, then?" he mumbled. But then he turned to N-bird: "You know, come to think of it, I've had quite a few dreams like this recently, dreams where this sword wasn't broken again. And you know what? I wasn't surprised in any of them. I just thought, 'oh, I thought it was broken, but I guess I was mistaken, that's great, then'.

N-bird shrugged. "So?"

"So this isn't really a dream, because I'm not thinking that way," concluded Zoro. "It's just weird stuff happening, that's all. Some kind of strange hypnosis maybe." He shrugged.

"Hey!" squawked L-bird. "That sword of yours is getting all cracked and rusty again!" Zoro glanced down, and it was true. The rust and cracks were spreading – much slower than they had when it broke, but a lot faster than they normally would in real life. Soon the sword would shatter again.

"It's probably 'cause you won't believe that it's whole now," said U-bird urgently. "I think you should just keep thinking and saying to yourself that it's actually fine now, back to normal. And then it will heal up again, and you'll be able to use it the next time you fight. That's good, isn't it?"

Zoro shook his head heavily. "That's not the way things work," he mumbled.

"You shouldn't just give up like that – "

"No," said Zoro definitely. "I saw it break. When something is gone, you have to realise it. It won't come back. Things don't work like that." But he sheathed Yubashiri even so. He didn't think he'd particularly enjoy having to watch it break a second time.

"How can you tell?" argued U-bird. "It may not be how things work back where you come from, but it might be how they work around here, in this town. It's weird enough, after all..."

Zoro frowned, one eyebrow twitching, part of him wanting to exclaim quite forcefully that it was true all over. The truth was the truth no matter where you were. But he pushed the urge away and only shook his head once more. Then he started walking again.

"So why are you walking around with the pieces of a broken sword?" the orange bird asked after a few silent seconds.

Zoro shrugged. "Because I haven't found a worthy blade to replace it yet."

N-bird looked confused. "That still doesn't explain why…"

"Maybe you're going to find one here!" L-bird interrupted. "Maybe that's where the key is leading! Wouldn't that be great?"

"Ooh, that actually sounds plausible," said N-bird in an interested tone. "The sword could be inside a treasure chamber that the key leads to… that could work…"

The clock struck three times. It was a quarter to the hour.

xxxxx

The sun kept broiling, the winds kept passing by now and then without cooling anybody down, blowing sand in your eyes and leaves around your feet. The birds kept chattering, he kept walking, the streets kept being empty and the unknown other swordsman who must be around there somewhere kept not materialising in the least.

It was all wrong.

It was all wrong, he could feel it more and more, and it irked him that the birds apparently couldn't sense it at all. Everyone else did, obviously – that was why they stayed out of sight. His unknown opponent did – that was why he wouldn't step forward. But the birds just kept flying around him blithely, ignoring the afternoon heat and not understanding a thing.

The black birds had been singing some silly song of L-bird's about islands in the north and the south, and now L-bird was fooling around with some bits of red paprika he'd found in the gutter. He'd had U-bird tie it to his head and chin so he could make a 'chicken impression', complete with cackling and waddling. U-bird sounded like he was about to die with laughter. N-bird was either rolling her eyes at the black birds and telling them to hurry up for God's sake, or peeking into various shop windows they were passing (but Zoro did catch her humming the tune to L-bird's song under her breath). And all of them kept bothering him about the sparkling key, pointing out various doors and gates they were passing and asking him if he shouldn't try unlocking them.

"I _told_ you, I'll know the right lock when I see it!" he said as patiently as he could manage. "Now stop distracting me. There's a place I need to find."

"What place is that?" asked U-bird curiously.

"It's where you're going to fight someone, isn't it?" said L-bird eagerly. "Whoever it is. That guy who isn't Hawkeye."

Zoro nodded curtly.

"Well, what kind of place is it?" asked N-bird. "We might have an idea of where it is, you never know."

"I don't know, exactly," admitted Zoro. "But I figure it's in some big open place in the city centre."

"That's where you've been trying to go all this time?" said N-bird, sounding amazed. "Wow, you should have told us so before! I was honestly beginning to think you were on some kind of huge sightseeing tour here."

"Well, it's not like you offered to help me before," said Zoro shortly, feeling rather annoyed. L-bird and U-bird were snickering in the background.

"Well, you didn't tell us, so how could we?" retorted N-bird.

"Well, you didn't ask!" he pointed out. Though perhaps they had, at that. But only back in the beginning when he wasn't replying to them.

"The centre, huh?" said U-bird. "That's easy! I know that!"

"Oh?" said Zoro and N-bird simultaneously, giving him identical sceptical looks.

"Sure! See, this town is built around seven city walls, with the centre inside the innermost one. But watch out! There are big burly warriors armed to the teeth guarding the gates of each wall, aided by fearsome eagles. They'll ask to see a pantomime to let you through, and unless you do a real good one or distract them with some pie, you're in for it! Once I hadn't memorised anything and had to fight my way in through a whole pack of them, not that it was any trouble of course…"

Zoro glanced at the orange bird. "So are you gonna help out, or not?"

"Well, I haven't actually seen a map of this town or seen any open place like that yet," admitted the N-bird, making Zoro snort and roll his eyes. "But you crossed a wide avenue just now, a block from here," she continued, "and I think there's a better chance of that one leading right than if you keep walking this narrow side-street."

"You think?" Zoro shrugged. "Well, can't hurt to try it, I guess," he said, turning around.

"Hey, wait, you've only turned right! Turn all the way around! No, that's too far! To the left!"

The black birds giggled and Zoro scowled, trying his best to follow her confusing instructions despite feeling hot and tired.

"I did turn left," he protested.

"That was right," sighed N-bird. Then she flew off his shoulder, hovering in front of him. "Okay, follow me then. Here, down this road. No, here!"

Eventually Zoro did find himself looking down a wide, tree-lined street, and he had to admit it looked like it might lead somewhere important. He noted that the trees all seemed tired and withering in the heat, their leaves dry and grey. It was eerily quiet.

All wrong.

The orange bird settled on Zoro's left shoulder again. "Well, then, Mr. Swordsman," she proclaimed, too loudly for his taste, "now that I know where you want to go, I can easily fly up to some fine vantage point and pick out the quickest route for you! Lucky for you, eh?"

"Yay!" said L-bird, hopping up and down on the nearest tree branch. "I'll help out, too! Did you know that if you find a cool spot, that means it's more to the north? 'Cause it's colder in the north, of course!"

"Would you try thinking for once?" muttered Zoro under his breath. How stupid. North was upwards, everyone knew that.

"Uh, I think you should leave this to me, L-bird," said N-bird. "Anyway…"

"Just remember," said U-bird cheerfully, "if you should come across one of them gate guards you only have to say you've been sent by the gallant and powerful U-bird, and they'll be sure to quail in their boots and let you in quickly. As long as you don't stare at their ears, of course."

"Why, what's wrong with their ears?" asked L-bird.

"They look like coleslaw, and they're very sensitive about it…"

"_Anyway_," continued N-bird brightly, "I'm not doing it for free. If you'll find a treasure at the end of it, you'll have to give me a cut of, oh, let's say fifty-five percent. That's only reasonable, right?"

A hot desert wind shook down some of the dry grey leaves from the tree next to Zoro. The clock struck four times and then, with a different chime, once. So it was one o'clock now.

He still felt rather hot and tired, more than he should be from just walking around. But it wasn't as if he cared about money, and the offer didn't actually sound that bad to him. He should just nod and say yes. Or say nothing, for the orange bird obviously assumed he'd agree.

But instead he found himself growling,

"Hey, you. Could you turn the greed down a notch? It's getting old."

N-bird gasped sharply. The black birds froze and stared at him.

"Wh-what?" squawked N-bird, sounding both baffled and shocked. Then outrage took over: "Excuse me– ?! I'm trying to _help_ you, you bozo!"

"In case you haven't noticed," snapped Zoro, "you happen to be a tiny tropical bird right now! What the hell is a small bird going to do with gold and jewellery?"

"Man's got a point, you know," chirped U-bird. N-bird opened her beak angrily and would no doubt have told him to shut the hell up, but she didn't get a chance to.

"And you!!" Zoro damn near shouted, as he spun around and pointed straight at U-bird. "Always with your bullshit! I'm sick and tired of you always spinning bullshit!"

"Wah! Scary!" yelped U-bird, leaping behind L-bird to try and hide there, which looked rather odd as they were pretty much the same size. He peeked out from there with some of that same shocked bafflement about him. L-bird flapped his wings protectively and looked up at Zoro indignantly.

"Hey, hey! That's not fair!" he shouted. "We don't know anymore than your thoughts do! Don't blame us for them!"

Zoro drew in breath between his teeth, confused and angry. "What – ?"

N-bird hopped over to the black birds on the tree branch. "He's right, you know," she said calmly, her eyes only slightly narrowed. "To tell you the truth, we only flew out from your head about little more than an hour or so ago. Except for what we've seen of this town since then, the only things we know come directly from your mind."

"What? That's – crazy –!"

"Well, it's true, so there!" said L-bird, nodding repeatedly and sticking out his tongue at him.

Zoro glared at L-bird. "Don't be so – so _predictable_!" he hissed. "You – All of you – "

"Scary!" squawked U-bird again, still hiding behind L-bird.

N-bird looked concerned. "Why are you so upset all of a sudden?" She put her head to one side and looked up at the swordsman.

"SHUT UP!" yelled Zoro, not knowing how it had come to this point and quite unable to stop himself. "ALL OF YOU IDIOTS! JUST SHUT UP!"

He put a hand to his forehead, feeling dazed but heard himself muttering in a low tone, not quite aware of what he was saying: "Stupid little immature morons always needing bloody looking after…running around fumbling things up, all the damned time…" his voice sank down to barely audible, "I don't…I'm sick of it…"

Why do they always need me so much? he thought suddenly. Aren't they just fooling themselves?

How can I make sure they will always need me?

How can I ever break free and walk my own path again?

And why was he suddenly shouting and having crazy thoughts like this, it wasn't like him at all – it was this stupid town or the lunatic birds or something, making him into something he wasn't, some kind of unbalanced whiner – it wasn't right…

He thought they were still there, just staying mercifully quiet for the nonce. He thought they would soon start chattering again, annoying and know-it-all and seemingly helpful but actually just hanging out with him because they happened to feel like it for the moment. Trying to lead him to some stupid so-called insight – probably just bullshit, too – as if that were the job of imaginary talking birds who wouldn't even take responsibility for their own impersonations.

He was so sure they were still there.

When he finally looked over his shoulder and realised he was alone he didn't know for how long it had been so. His senses ought to have been sharp enough to pick up the faint beating of departing wings. Maybe they hadn't flown away, but simply vanished, as silent as he'd asked them to be.

Maybe what he felt was relief.

(To Be Continued)


	3. Intermission

Chapter 3

Chapter 3. Intermission  
-In which there is an intermission.

"…hey?"

"Huh? Where did the street go? Where did _he_ go?"

"We're back where we started!"

And so the three of them were, sitting on top of the high stone wall right where the green-haired man with three swords had first appeared.

"What the hell just happened?" said U-bird.

"He didn't wanna talk to us anymore!" said L-bird indignantly. "Stupid guy!"

N-bird frowned. "Yeah, it's like he's… banished us, somehow," she muttered. "He's shut us out of his mind, so he won't listen, and we can't even come near him anymore."

"Stupid guy! Why did he have to go and do that for? HEY, STUPID SWORDS-GUY! TRY THAT AGAIN AND I'LL KICK YOUR ASS!"

"Oi, he can't hear you, L-bird… All right, Miss I-Have-All-The-Answers, if we're just part of that guy's dream, then how come we're still here?"

N-bird gave U-bird a flat look. "What do you mean?" she said.

"Well, if he's not around to hear us and see us, shouldn't we just, like, disappear into thin air or something? Or get turned into something else, not being ourselves anymore?!"

"Bleah!" said L-bird. "I'm not letting anyone turn me into anything else! And not you guys either! We're fine the way we are!"

"Yeah, sure, but N-bird seems to think we don't have a choice," said U-bird. "So how come we're still here, all three of us, talking and hearing and seeing each other?"

"Maybe we're the ones dreaming this!" said L-bird, grinning widely.

"I… I don't know!" N-bird hopped a few steps along the stone wall, looking agitated. "But maybe… maybe it's just a part of Mr Swordsman that's blocking us out? Maybe there's another part of him that is still listening to us, only we can't see it!"

"In-invisible?" U-bird looked around, twitching nervously, feathers on edge. "That's kinda creepy…"

"That kinda… _sounds_ cool," said L-bird, face screwed up in thought. "But when you think about it, it's no fun if you can't see someone! Unless they're talking and stuff." He cast an impatient look around him, as if demanding the hypothetical invisible presence to say something.

N-bird shrugged. "I don't really know," she admitted. "But, well, sometimes there's a bit of someone's mind that's kind of cut off from the rest of it, doing its own thing. It happens, I've heard."

U-bird shot her a sharp look at this, but N-bird just kept looking at the houses across the street with a thoughtful, faraway expression. A hot wind passed by, rattling the whole of the dry apple-tree right next to them.

"I wish R-bird was here," she mumbled. "She could probably make some more sense out of it."

"Yeah, she'd be better than you at that," agreed U-bird, "and it would be more in character for her, too. Ow! Stop that!"

"Hey, at least I'm _trying_ to think!" said N-bird angrily. "Someone has to! Make up your own explanation if you don't like it, instead of blaming me!" She paused, flying up to a branch of the apple tree where she picked experimentally at a small apple. It was much too hard to eat.

She sighed. "But I guess R-bird can't come here," she mumbled. "Mr. Swordsman hasn't bothered dreaming her here, so she doesn't really exist…"

"Huuuhh?!" said L-bird incredulously. "How could R-bird not exist?" His voice took on a teasing tone, as he flapped his wings erratically, crossed his eyes and put his tongue out: "You're going craaaazyy, N-bird! Craaazy!"

"You're the crazy one!" squawked N-bird indignantly, but stayed in the mottled shade of the foliage instead of trying to chase L-bird around in the hot sun. She confined herself to throwing the too-hard apple at his head.

"Hm?" L-bird bent down at the same moment and looked eagerly at some spot on the ground; he didn't even notice the fruit swooshing by over his head. "Hey, is that food?" He hurtled down to the ground at full speed, and soon flew back up holding two big worms in his beak.

"Anyway," said U-bird, flying up to a tree-branch above N-bird's, "I don't think we really _are _in his dream at all! Okay, I guess we probably did fly out of his head, it kinda makes sense, but this place… this town, I don't think it's a dream, really! And anyway, do you really think he has the imagination for all of this? Nah, it's somewhere else!"

N-bird rolled her eyes. "Like saying that clears anything up. Next you're gonna claim we're actually in his heart."

"No… wait! I'll think of something!" insisted U-bird. "Something that sounds good!"

"What good is that, if it doesn't make sense?" muttered N-bird. She moved further into the shade of the branches. The afternoon sun seemed to have grown even stronger, and she was starting to feel just a little drowsy.

"Okay! I know!" croaked L-bird, having finished the worms. "I've figured it out!"

"Huh? What?" The other two turned their heads, looking at him in surprise.

"Yep!" L-bird nodded emphatically. "We're gonna go find that guy he's here to fight! The one he can't get to 'cause he keeps getting lost, and he doesn't even know who it is! Then that stupid Swords-guy is gonna have to talk to us again, and not be boring and invisible and stuff! And it's gonna be a great fight to watch, and then he'll win, and then he can go back to his crew like he's supposed to! All right?"

N-bird and U-bird paused for a while and looked at each other. They looked over at L-bird again in silence.

Then they both nodded.

"All right! Let's do that!" U-bird pointed beak and one wing at the sky and fluttered his wings dramatically.

"Yeah, all right!" squawked N-bird. "We ought to have a better shot of finding him than Mr. Swordsman does! But don't fly too far, L-bird…Hey! L-bird!!" She set off hurriedly after the small black bird with ruffled feathers, who was already a tiny speck in the air by now.

"Oi, L-bird, wait up! You're gonna get lost too!" shouted U-bird, also flying off as fast as he could in that direction.

The three small birds flew higher and higher over the roofs in the city. Far behind them and below, something small, soft and round fell down from the wall by the orchard and started to roll as it hit the street. Strangely enough, it swerved around corners, and didn't stop when the street curved uphill.

But no-one was there to see and wonder about it. So perhaps it wasn't really there at all.

(To Be Continued)


	4. The Twilight Street

Chapter 4: The Twilight Street  
-In which we pass through narrow streets of cobble and stone: a door opens, and an ascent is contemplated

When the door appeared he almost walked right past it. It was only at the last moment that something clicked in his head and he turned around to look more closely across the street. There was nothing dramatic about either the whitewashed brick wall or the rounded wooden door in the middle of it, painted green. But it looked very much like it hid something secret, leading somewhere worth going.

Or it might not be. Only one way to find out.

He looked up and down the road before crossing it slowly, feeling absurdly that he ought not to make any sudden movements, as if the green door would sprout wings and fly away otherwise.

…Damn, but his thinking was growing more and more muddled around here. He almost wanted Sanji to be there just to kick some sense into his head. Except that the love-cook would almost certainly go crazy before he did, he corrected himself immediately.

The lock seemed to be made out of the same basic white material as the key he had picked up earlier, though yellowed by the sun and not sparkling in the least. The key fit perfectly. And the hinges hardly even squeaked as he pushed the door open.

He blinked.

xxxxx

"_Let's start by that big clock-tower over there! L-bird, this way!"_

"_Ah?! Okay!"_

"_Whoa, that's some way up, all right…"_

"_Can't be helped! All the better view from it! Let's go, guys!"_

xxxxx

Beyond the green door lay an ordinary-looking street that began – or ended – with the white-washed brick wall and stretched out a fair bit into the distance. Most of the houses were fairly low, rarely more than three or four stories high, though it seemed the ones at the far end of the street were taller. The street was narrow and dusty like everywhere else, but not very dirty or littered. A kite lay abandoned in the dust not far from the wall, but that was all he could see.

And the sky…

Zoro blinked again, then fairly stared.

He turned back, looking up at the sky above the first street from where the green door opened up, where he was still standing. Yep, there the sun was, burning hotly, the sky a cloudless azure blue, while the shadows in the street were small and tiny and maybe even actually smaller than they should be at around a quarter past one or whatever the time might be. Certainly still early afternoon, though, and still very dry and hot.

But on the other side of the green door, the narrow long street and its houses were shrouded in – well, not quite darkness, it didn't look like night-time, but most definitely a dark dusk. Actually, the gray-blue sky didn't quite look like it used to be around nightfall either. Zoro had never witnessed a solar eclipse, but he could imagine it might make the sky dark in this very way. Except that while the sun could not be seen at all on this side of the door, the houses very oddly still had shadows – huge, sunset-tall shadows that criss-crossed the narrow road.

At the very far end of the street, as it veered off to one side, he could just about make out a small white square, probably the sunlit side of a distant building. So it looked like the strange semi-darkness only lasted across this one street and its adjoining alleys. This one passage through the dusk.

Zoro grinned slowly, widely. Well, this was more like it.

xxxxx

There was no drop in temperature as he stepped onto the darkened street. Despite the absence of visible sunlight, the air was just as hot and dry on this side of the door.

He shrugged. Just one more weird thing among many.

As he stood there with one hand on the door handle, he had the distinct impression that if he let the green door stand ajar, he could go back here later if he wanted to; but if he shut it close, he would be unable to go back through this way. Even if he didn't lock the door – even while keeping the sparkling key in his pocket. It also felt like no-one else could follow him through the green door into this part of the town, if he were to shut it completely.

But that was exactly the way it should be. No turning back. He closed the door behind him without the slightest hesitation.

It was preternaturally silent on this side of the door. He'd thought the rest of the town was quiet, but in here he couldn't catch even the slightest breath of air and no rustling of leaves. The houses didn't creak; there were no scuttling lizards, falling acorns or buzzing insects, and no other little mysterious noise either. The silence reigned absolute but for the sound his steps and his breathing made – and even they seemed strangely muffled.

He fingered the hilts of his swords slowly and thought it was probably a good sign, this deafening, expectant silence. Something seemed likely to happen soon enough.

Then he thought he caught a movement in the corner of one eye, something small rolling on the ground at high speed. He spun around but there was nothing there.

He passed the crumpled kite lying in the middle of the road and spied a cat in the next alley over, crouching low and watching him indolently while biting into something small it was holding between its paws. He gave it a wary look, but it didn't start talking or turn into something else as he'd half expected. It made no noises as it ate. (He craned his neck without meaning to but couldn't make out what kind of animal the cat's meal had been.)

_What are you doing here? Why are you here?_ the empty houses and the dark gaping eyes of their windows seemed to ask, but it was only echoes in his mind from the birds' words earlier.

No, I am not hiding, he thought. What would I be hiding from? Nothing has scared me recently. There's nothing like that going on.

But…I'm not having an adventure on my own either. Don't get me wrong, adventures are fine and all, but really… they belong with Luffy. That's not what's going on either.

So am I here to fight someone, then? Maybe. Maybe not. Just – There's just something I've gotta do, something I've gotta find here. Could be a sword, or an enemy, or something else… But there's got to be a reason this town exists for me here. It's something that I've got to accomplish. On my own.

Is that really so much to ask?

xxxxx

About halfway down the street and without the slightest warning, he felt the smell of dewy grass on a summer night. His nostrils widened and he stopped, looking around. Nothing had changed on the street. Still hot and dry and dusky, not a straw of grass in sight.

Yet…

it smelled just like the grass had smelled on that one night outside the dojo so many years ago now. When three katanas had been gleaming as one sword met two in the moonlight…

The smell disappeared within seconds, the air was dry and sandy once more, and he started to walk again. Really, there'd been no point in stopping in the first place. No use in trying to understand it.

Of course he wasn't hiding. There was nothing to hide from.

And there was absolutely no reason for something inside his chest to hurt, even for just a moment.

So he looked down on the ground and decided it hadn't.

xxxxx

"_Huh? What's that?…Hey, you guys, there's something big moving over there!"_

"_What? Where? Oh, I see it!! It's someone walking, isn't it?"_

"_Great! Maybe it's the one we're looking for!"_

"…_What's that it's dragging behind it? Looks weird from up here."_

"_I want a closer look! I'm going down!"_

"_Yeah!! Me, too!!"_

"_H-Hey! Don't fly too close now – we don't know what kinda person it is!" _

"_Yeah, but how else will we find out?!"_

xxxxx

Zoro was only four short blocks from the end of the street when he caught a glimpse of something gleaming in the dark side street he was just passing, something that looked metallic.

He turned around and shouted: "Who's there?", one hand ready to draw if need be. But there was no answer. He felt a bit foolish, yet tempted to go in pursuit just this once, for hadn't that been the flash of steel?

He took one uncertain step towards the alley…

And stopped as he heard squawks of happy surprise in the air above him.

"Hey! There he is!"

"Great! You're not invisible anymore!"

"Invisible?" said Zoro, frowning. He stared up at the black birds with about equal measures of relief, apprehension, guilt and irritation, with a sprinkling of bewilderment on top. For some reason he wouldn't have thought even birds would be able to come here, once the green door was shut close.

"Where the hell did you go?" he shouted.

They blinked at him, looking first confused, then indignant.

"Whaddya mean?" yelled the Luffyesque bird. "You're the one who didn't wanna talk to us anymore, you dummy! You sent us away!"

"No, I didn't! You just disappeared on your own! Jerks!" Zoro added for good measure.

"_You're_ the jerk!"

"Hey!" yelled U-bird, looking from one to the other with annoyance. "Could you two do this some other time? L-bird, we've got something to tell him, remember?"

"Oh! That's right!" The small black bird brightened again. "Hey, Swords-guy, we've found your opponent!"

"What– ?!"

"Well, we've found _someone_, at any rate," said U-bird. "A really suspicious type, too."

"Yep! Over there somewhere!" said L-bird, one claw waving vaguely to what Zoro thought of as the left.

"Over _there,_" corrected U-bird._ "_And N-bird's keeping an eye on her right now so she can't get away!"

"Her?" Zoro felt the blood draining from his face, his grip tightening to the point of pain on Wadou's hilt. _Oh, fuck…_

"Yep, some old granny carrying a big knitting around!" burbled L-bird, and Zoro slumped in relief. "She says she's eaten the Dream Dream Fruit and that she MADE all this!" the bird went on, sweeping one wing widely, apparently to indicate their entire surroundings. "But N-bird thinks she's just making it up!"

U-bird nodded. "Yeah, she said, and I quote, 'you're just someone Mr. Swordsman has been dreaming up!' Man, N-bird's really stuck on that one theory of hers."

"Huh," said Zoro. "Doesn't sound like a fighter." Not that he didn't know full well about deceptive appearances. Some appearances were extremely honest, though. "But I guess I could go take a look at her."

U-bird swooped higher and pointed with one wing. "Great! Look, I think it's best if you just keep going this street to the end. Right to the left there's a square that opens up, and it was around there we left her. N-bird said she's going to leave tracks for us to follow."

Zoro nodded in acknowledgement. "Okay. Sounds good." He started to pick up his step.

"Hey, I told you _not_ to turn around!" protested U-bird. "Straight ahead!"

"What, like this?"

"No!! Now you've gotta turn!"

L-bird laughed. "That looks _so funny_!"

Zoro scowled at him. "Like you're one to talk," he and U-bird said in chorus.

"Yeah, whatever," said L-bird, flapping his wings energetically. "Just don't turn invisible again, okay? That was boring!"

"L-bird, I keep telling you, he never was invisible in the first place…"

"How d'you know? If someone is invisible you can't know, can you? Anyway, who cares!! Let's go after that weird old granny already!"

Zoro sighed imperceptibly and followed the birds. Aah, what the hell. It was kinda good to see them back, anyway.

xxxxx

It was a really small square, he noted as he left the twilight street and entered sunlight again. The opening was flanked with narrow brick buildings whose windows were mostly boarded up. There was a lot of dust flying around, and more flies than he'd seen anywhere else in this town. A chestnut tree looked rather forlorn where it stood at its closest end, dropping chestnuts on them as they passed. The most notable thing about the square was a wide and very high staircase of stone that mounted from one end of the square up high into the hillside: Zoro couldn't see where it led, but it wasn't as if he had time to stand and gawk. The birds circled about looking for clues with a rather confused air, and it was Zoro who happened to notice the thin red thing on the ground first.

"Hey, what's that?" he asked, pointing with Wadou.

"Huh?" L-bird and then U-bird hurried over to there. "Hey, it's a red thread!" The thread began right there in the approximate centre, then ran over about half the square towards the foot of the great stone steps.

Zoro sheathed the sword and crossed his arms. "Could that be from the knitting you were talking about? The one the old lady had."

"Oh!!" exclaimed L-bird, jumping up and down. "That's it, it must be! There was a lot of red in it! Right, U-bird?"

"Yeah, that's gotta be it! That's pretty smart of N-bird. Now all we have to do is to follow that thread and we're bound to catch up with them!"

"It seems to lead up the steps," noted Zoro. "So, N-bird's alone with that old woman, then?"

U-bird nodded. "Yeah, she said she was the best choice because she'd be able to keep track of her the best, and find her again if she had to break off and fly away to us."

L-bird clouded. "_I _wanted to follow the weird granny, but N-bird said I'd only cause trouble," he grumbled.

"Amazing," said Zoro evenly. He was now almost at the foot of the steps.

"But it's no good!" L-bird suddenly exclaimed, looking bothered. "I wanna see what they're up to! That old granny could be doing something cool – or she might be mean to N-bird!" He took a dramatic extra leap in the air. "Okay!! I'm going up to take a look! Don't go away now, Swords-guy! I'll be back soon!"

Zoro raised an eyebrow as he looked up at the small shape of the ascending little bird.

"You know," he said calmly after a pause, "if Orangey really were in trouble up there, then how would he be able to help her? Being a small bird, I mean."

"Good question," said U-bird. He'd landed on the stone handrails close by, and sat there silently for a few moments now. Then he took an indecisive hop to the left and then flew up a short bit, sat down again and then jumped right back, twisting his head and looking pretty damn worried.

"You know," he suddenly said, "you know, I – I think I'd better go check on them. Just – just to make sure they're not getting into trouble… um… don't lose the thread or N-bird will mangle me, okay?! Be right back!" And then he was off as well, flying up at a high speed but in an anxiously teetering fashion, sort of like a shot from a drunk but experienced archer.

The unseen clock struck half past one.

Wait a minute, Zoro thought. He'd never heard it strike a quarter past. That was odd. Maybe it was out of order.

Alone again, he squinted in the sunlight, looking up the stone steps. The air was trembling with heat.

Why was he hesitant all of a sudden, why did he feel reluctant to follow the red thread of yarn up these steps? He glanced behind him: the exit from the dark twilight street was still not very far from here, across the small square. He couldn't say why he felt an urge to go back there, as if he'd forgotten something important and precious he needed to bring with him.

It didn't make any sense to think that. There had been nothing there on the twilight street, nothing except a teasing glint of steel that hadn't led anywhere. Up there he might find a confrontation, a way to take action, a worthy purpose – maybe even a chance of gaining the new sword he was looking for – and also the possibility of a way out of this place. And more and more, he was beginning to feel like he was running out of time.

And yet…

He wasn't wounded, felt no fatigue, wasn't even sleepy in the least (though he wouldn't have minded a drop of booze right now). He felt perfectly fine and healthy. Yet as he looked up on the towering stone steps above him, his limbs felt heavy and reluctant, his mind getting more sluggish. Maybe there might be another way – But no. No.

Luffy was counting on him. They were all counting on him.

He had a promise to keep.

He'd already climbed about five steps before it occurred to him to wonder: since when did the promise become the second thing in his mind, instead of the first?

xxxxx

He climbed the many stone steps with a mounting sense of urgency, picking up speed as he went. The ascent was less tiring than it had seemed for a moment at the foot, but the steep climb, the absence of landings and the hot midday sun still made for heavier going than he felt they ought to have done.

About halfway up, he failed to see a small grey ball of yarn until he had already stepped on it: quickly he'd gotten tangled into the yarn, lost his balance but luckily toppled forward instead of backward, slid down ten meters but managed to stop the fall after that. The grey thread of the troublesome ball and the guiding red thread were a tangled mess, and it took him some time to untangle himself without cutting the red thread. Further up, the grey thread ran up the steps side by side with the red one.

A few minutes after that, a huge purple ball of yarn, bigger than Chopper in Fur Point form, tumbled down from the top right at Zoro. He had to draw both swords and hack through the yarn in order to get it out of the way. Even when sliced through, the strands of yarn still moved on their own, trying to form a net around him, so he was forced to whack them away with the flat of his swords and then jump up several meters above the tangle to move forward.

So… a knitting enemy that attacked with threads and balls of yarn, he thought. Rather silly, but he'd seen sillier. Ah, well.

Then L-bird and U-bird reappeared for the last thirty meters or so, flying down from the top to keep him company for the last bit. L-bird looked bright-eyed and dishevelled, as if he'd been in a satisfying scrap. U-bird looked distinctly annoyed. Zoro glanced at them and decided not to say anything.

When he finally reached the top he didn't bother with turning around to look at the view, although he was sure you could see a lot of the sleeping dusty town from here. Again he felt pressed for time, and focused wholly on the wide expanse in front of him instead.

xxxxx

Well, how about that. This actually looked pretty much like the big central piazza he'd been picturing all along. On the opposite side of the vast open square rose a narrow building with a tall, imposing tower – probably the town's clock-tower, as there was a big clock-face on top of it, and had great slits in its walls high up where the bells must be. The left side of the piazza was guarded by a big square building furnished with lots of Marine flags and insignia, probably the local HQ. But there were no soldiers around. The right side was taken up by two more luxurious structures – palaces of some kind, he supposed. At the approximate centre of the square was a fountain, and this one was whole and functioning, its water sparkling in the sunlight. Not far from it stood a statue of bronze and a large-ish block of stone. The red and grey threads that had leapt up the stone steps both led to the fountain and joined there with many other threads in one huge multicoloured knitting at least three meters long. And sitting on the edge of the fountain still knitting it was the old woman the bird had told him about.

She was big and gnarled, with a round stomach and wide shoulders and a huge head of curly grey hair all tangled up like a bird's nest. Her body was wrapped in a tattered black cloak, and the arms and legs that stuck out from it were long and skinny but not without muscle. She looked pretty ugly to Zoro, with pockmarks and warts on her wrinkled old face and two short hairs on her chin, but her small eyes were bright and alert when she looked up at him as he came closer.

"Ah, there you are, dearie," she said kindly, nodding at him without pausing in her knitting. "You look like you've been walking for some time to get here. You must be feeling rather hot and tired. Why don't you sit down here by the fountain for a while?"

"Hey," said Zoro, pointing at the clock-tower, "is that thing not working properly, or what? I heard it strike one o'clock and then half past one, but never a quarter past one."

The old woman smiled. "Ah. Then you must have passed through the twilight passage on your way here. I thought you might – you seem to be the type. No, you wouldn't have heard the bells strike while in there." She reached for yet another thread of yarn and twined it into the knitting. "Sounds from the rest of the town tend not to reach that place. By the way, did you find anyone to fight in that place?"

"No."

"Hm. Perhaps you didn't look for it well enough."

"What?" said L-bird, looking perplexed. "Was there some fighter around there?" He swerved to Zoro accusingly: "You never said! You said you wanted to find some big open place like this, so that's what we looked for! Otherwise we could have looked for a dark alley instead!"

Zoro waved dismissively. "Nah, it's nothing. Forget it, it doesn't matter." He shifted position, leaning Wadou in its scabbard against his shoulder. "These guys say you've got devil fruit powers, old lady." He thumbed towards the birds, who had sat down further away on the fountain, L-bird much closer to the old woman than U-bird.

The old woman nodded with a smile. "Why, so I have," she said lightly. "I've eaten the Dream Dream Fruit, and that gives me the power to move into other people's dreams and manipulate them to my liking. My real body may not be very strong, but I can always slip away from stronger people into the nearest open dream. And I can cross from one dreamer's mind to another's as easily as you cross the street. Not perhaps the most useful ability from a fighter's point of view, but it can come in pretty handy at many times."

"Don't listen to her, Mr. Swordsman!" N-bird suddenly appeared from behind the statue, flying over towards them. She looked a bit dishevelled as well, Zoro noted. "I don't think there really is any Dream Dream Fruit," continued the orange bird. "Look at her, she's all flat and weird – I don't think she's a real person at all! And she talks like a cliché of a devious old witch! I bet she came right from your head, just like we did!"

"You're both nuts," said Zoro. "I told you, this doesn't feel like a dream." It was true that the old woman did look a bit flat-ish, kind of like many of the houses in this town. But so what? And the birds didn't look like that, even though they actually _claimed_ to be imaginary. "Hey, old lady," he continued lazily, tilting his head back, "I don't have time to stop for a chat. I'm looking for a new sword and a way out of here. If you don't know anything about either of those things, just don't stand in my way. Okay?"

He heard U-bird mutter softly to N-bird as she landed beside him, "Why is it that I totally hear 'Hey, you wanna fight, or what?' behind those words?"

N-bird mumbled in reply, "If he were talking to someone else, I'd wonder why he has to look so evil when he says it. But that old biddy absolutely deserves it."

"Why you would have to go provoke a devil fruit user is beyond me," grumbled U-bird, but now Zoro was zoning them out, focusing on the old woman.

She was looking up at Zoro, squinting in the sunlight. "Well, dearie, if you put it like that, I think I _will_ be in your way." She grinned a wide, gap-toothed smile; then she pointed one of her knitting needles at him, and suddenly it grew longer and wider until it reached the length and width of a lance, prodding his stomach with a razor-sharp point.

"_En garde_, young pirate!" she told him.

(To Be Concluded)


	5. Carry Each Other

"En garde" said the grinning old woman

**SPOILER WARNING!!** As mentioned in the summary, this chapter contains some spoilers for early Thriller Bark. It's safe to proceed if you've read at least about half of the arc – the anime is well past the point I'm thinking of, too. (Sorry I can't be more specific.)

**Edit: Romanisation Warning**: Zoro's surname pops up a couple of places here, so I thought I'd warn that I use the Swedish spelling of 'Lolonoa', not the English one of 'Roronoa', though I know the latter is the official one endorsed by Oda. 'Roronoa' just looks so growly to me – I can't get used to it. (And considering the name is based on historical figure Francois L'Ollonais, I'm not convinced 'Lolonoa' is _entirely_ incorrect.) But in any case it won't turn up much, I promise!

Chapter 5: Carry Each Other

-In which explanations are offered from a dubious source, fight scenes occur, and there's a marked lack of stability in things

"_En garde_" said the grinning old woman.

Zoro glanced down at the knitting-needle-turned-spear pushing against his breastbone, swatted it away with the still-sheathed Wadou in its scabbard, jumped up towards the old woman, drew the blade while in the air, put the scabbard back in his belt as he descended and struck at her neck – knowing he'd have the strength to stop the strike in the last possible instant were she to prove too slow. But the old woman let her other knitting needle grow longer as well and used it to parry the blow. In the background the birds were gasping, and soon started to cheer him on.

The old woman had disentangled the bulk of her super-long knitting from her two needles seemingly without any trouble. Only a few strands of yarn were still loosely hanging from them, and didn't seem to hinder her movements any. On the contrary, she seemed well able to use the threads as an additional weapon, sending them towards his arms and legs, trying to tangle him up. As for Zoro, he'd already drawn Sandai Kitetsu and was attacking and defending with both swords.

Her style was rather odd, probably because her weapons were odd. The knitting-needles stayed mostly the lengths of lances or fighting-staffs, but sometimes shrank back to the size and length of longswords – and sometimes right down to their original knitting-needle size. Once, she let one of them grow about three meters long and used it as a vaulting pole to jump right over him, taking him by surprise when he had braced for an attack. It wasn't the kind of weapon that you'd usually see with two-handed techniques. Maybe that was why she combined the twirls, thrusts and sweeps suitable for such long reaches with more sword-like jabs, feints and slashes. Those latter moves looked rather inefficient and uneconomical to him, especially as the knitting-needles were sharp only at their points and a foot or so below the points, unlike swords but like spears and lances. But he had to admit that he could feel it when their sides hit him. The Dream Dream woman had strength enough to give her weapons impact worthy of heavy clubs.

"Two-Sword Style… HAWK WAVE!" he shouted, sending out a strong gust of air towards her intended to knock her over, then kept running at her to come in close for a follow-up.

She didn't manage to evade the blow and tumbled backwards from it, flapping her arms and then falling on her back. But she quickly rolled on the ground and leapt up again, already counter-attacking before he got the chance to strike her.

"STOCKINETTE STITCH!" shouted the old woman, and suddenly the two giant knitting-needles were thrust towards him at considerable speed, going up and down from one side to the other in a zig-zagging fashion that seemed intended to pin him down and actually reminded him of knitting movements. The move seemed rather energy-consuming, but she was fast and strong enough to make it work, to some extent. At the same time, a mass of threads tried to curl around his feet and legs to make him trip and fall. It took him some effort to knock the needles out of the way in a double slash from below; then he quickly leapt up to avoid the entangling yarn and to counter-attack.

It wasn't really a fight. Not yet.

It was more of a testing, a sounding-out, or maybe even a greeting of sorts. Or quite possible the old bat was only trying to delay him for her own mysterious reasons. But if so, there was nothing he could do about that: she'd started it, and he could hardly back down from a challenge.

For his part, he was holding back by a lot, since he had no interest in actually killing her or even make her fall unconscious. He wanted answers, and he was quite convinced that she had at least some of them. If he could disarm her and knock her around a bit, maybe cause a few harmless surface wounds, she might become more co-operative.

She was pretty obviously also holding back on him, didn't seem to be after his head – or not yet, in any case. Unless she was simply a lot better at defence than attack, for her needle-strokes when she came at him seemed just a mite slower than when she moved to dodge or block his attacks. Her strength was also more in evidence when she held him back than when she attacked.

By and large the old woman's strength and speed were considerable enough and nothing to sneeze at, but they weren't surprising him either. He'd pretty much counted on something in that range when he'd first looked her over. But her nimbleness and agility in the air were somewhat more unexpected from someone her age and size.

Suddenly she wasn't there in front of him anymore. The birds cried out in surprise. He spun around, but she wasn't behind him either – wasn't anywhere on the piazza anymore. He blinked, circling warily, remembering what he'd heard about the Door Door Fruit's powers and wondering if this might be something similar. Then he heard a faint popping sound in the air and saw his opponent sitting about fifty meters away, perched on top of the bronze statue by the fountain. Her weapons had shrunk down to their original size.

"Ah! She's back!" yelled the birds unnecessarily.

"Trying to run away, granny?" he said neutrally, cocking his head to one side and giving her a 'think-I-give-a-shit-what-you-do?' look.

The old woman grinned at him again, her eyes mostly hidden under her unruly bird's nest of grey hair. "Sorry to mislead you, young man," she croaked. "I was having a little fun just now – but I'm not really a fighter."

He frowned, crossing his arms. "Huh? What's that supposed to mean? I mean, I've seen better, but you weren't _that_ bad, you know."

She guffawed, seemingly not insulted by this. "I daresay not. Nah, you see, my real body is old and rheumatic and was never that strong even back when I was young. I've always gotten by on my wits more than anything else… until I ate that devil fruit a while back."

"Yeah?"

"It's only my devil fruit abilities that allow me to counter your moves," she explained, jumping down from the statue as easily as a ballerina, her two knitting needles held daintily between thumbs and forefingers. "All I have to do is to dream myself fast and strong and inventive enough to fight evenly against fighters of your calibre – and eventually defeat them. Of course, it helps if they've been dreaming here for a while, like you, so that I've become familiar with the corners of their mind."

There was a squawk of outrage from the fountain: Zoro turned his head and saw L-bird flying towards the statue. "What! That's cheating!" the bird protested. "You're nothing but a stupid cheater, weird granny!" he yelled as he swooped right over her, sticking his tongue out angrily.

"Cheater!" N-bird agreed, jumping up and down where she sat on the fountain's edge.

"Hey, wait a minute, granny," said U-bird intently, flapping his wings next to N-bird. "Does this mean that I only have to imagine I'm, say, a fierce and powerful eagle, and I'll become one?"

The old woman shook her head. "No, little bird," she said mildly, "_you_ can't, since you've only flown out of this young pirate's head. And for some reason he prefers to imagine you and your companions as small and defenceless creatures."

"Damn, that sucks," muttered U-bird.

"But – but what about Mr. Swordsman, then?" asked N-bird urgently. "In that case, he can just imagine he's stronger than you and it will be true, can't he? I mean, it _is_ his dream after all."

"I really don't think that's decided yet," said Zoro, putting his hands in his pockets and looking away from the old woman. He felt vaguely disgusted over her revelation. As he did so, he noticed the large block of stone from before, much closer to him now.

U-bird nodded emphatically. "See? He's not convinced. Me neither."

"So what?" said L-bird, who was practising hanging upside down from the outstretched hand of the statue but whose claws kept giving way, making him fall down repeatedly. "I mean, the important thing is to have fun, right?" Fortunately there was a part of the old woman's enormous knitting lying right below him on the ground, so he landed softly each time.

"Heh heh heh…" laughed the old woman smugly, grinning in the orange bird's direction. "Well, if he thinks he can be more imaginative than me, he's welcome to try. But let's take it easy for now." She held up a smaller knitting with a teacup-like pattern, pulled one of the strings, and then suddenly held an actual steaming teacup in her hand. Slowly sipping, she ignored the impressed gasps and "Did you see that?" exclamations from all the birds, even N-bird. "After all," the old woman continued, turning toward Zoro again, "you'll be here for a good while yet, young pirate. There'll be more time for fights later."

N-bird shook her head, looking agitated again. "You're wrong, you old fraud," she said. "He's not going to stay here for long. He's going to go back to his crew."

"Yeah!" shouted U-bird.

"Yeah, he is!" yelled L-bird as well, from where he lay head down on the ground. "We already decided!"

"I don't intend to stay long," Zoro agreed, crossing his arms. "Anyway, I was wondering something else. This stone here – " He pointed at the large stone in front of him: he'd passed it several times during the fighting and couldn't help but wonder a bit about its inscriptions, which he couldn't read.

The old woman, having finished her tea, waved her hand once and then the cup had vanished back into the teacup pattern of the smaller knitting. "The stone?" she said easily, picking up her big knitting again. "What about it, shadowless one?"

"Huh?" And suddenly he felt dizzy and distant again, just like the moment before, when he'd drawn an intact Yubashiri. He made his face and voice colder. "What did you just call me, old woman?"

The old bat bent down to pick up a ball of yellow yarn that had just rolled up to her feet by itself. She knitted its thread into the big knitting. "Shadowless is what I said," she said matter-of-factly. "Oh, maybe you didn't know that yet? That's part of why you're here, actually. Those whose shadows have been stolen by the Shadow Master wind up in a deep sleep that lasts for three days. No-one can wake them up before then. That kind of sleep is most fertile for strong, thick, unusually stable dreams – my favourite kind, in fact. It's easy then to draw the dream and its dreamer into a dreamscape like this one, which is handy for me to use as a base. People think it's a dreamless sleep, but it ain't. It's just very hard for them to remember the dream afterwards."

"Nobody took my shadow!" protested Zoro. "Look, I still have one!" He pointed at the grey spot on the ground where he stood. The old woman turned her head and peered where he pointed, craning her neck to see it better.

"Oho," she said. "Well, that's just because you think there should be one. This isn't your real body, little fool." She knitted for a few breaths, then said abruptly, "Actually, that shadow is a lie, pure and simple. Well, that's no good; we can't have that. I'll do you a favour and take it away here as well." She snapped her fingers in his direction, and suddenly Zoro's shadow vanished from the ground.

"H-hey…" he said, going pale, then angry. "What do you think you're…" But then he stopped, taking his hand away from Sandai Kitetsu's hilt.

"…Moria?" he wondered, as recent events finally started to swim up into the forefront of his mind, demanding to be recalled.

"Of course. Gecko Moria is the man who ate the Shadow Shadow Fruit."

"Well…" said Zoro slowly, "if what you're saying is true, then I _really_ don't have time to lounge around here for three days." He drew the demon sword and gave her a hard look. "Show me the way out, old woman."

The Dream Dream woman threw a thick net of knitting over him. "Out of my hands, sonny," he heard her blithe voice say, moving away from him. "You'll find it yourself when three days have passed. That's just the way it works. It's convenient for me, but it's not my fault. Don't blame me."

"Khh!…" He cut and tore his way out of the net, then looked around, confused. No sign of the old bat. "Hey, where did she go?" he asked the black birds, who were both quite close by.

They shook their heads, looking equally puzzled. "I dunno – she just vanished!" said U-bird. "Again!"

"Prob'ly running away from you," said L-bird.

"Watch it," said U-bird anxiously. "She might attack you with some kind of nightmare if she gets mad. I wonder why she didn't before."

"Hey, Mr. Swordsman," N-bird called over from where she was. He turned his head and saw her sitting on top of the large block of stone. The orange bird was bending her head and looking at the inscriptions on the stone from upside-down. "Could these things be poneglyphs?"

"Hm?" Zoro started and walked over there to give the big stone another look. But all he could say about the inscriptions was still that they weren't any kind of letters he knew.

In that moment, the old Dream Dream woman suddenly reappeared out of thin air, just five meters from him.

"Feeling calmer, do you?" she said to him, her tone casual but her body language a bit wary. "Oh, you're studying that? That old monolith is rather interesting, in fact. And it seems to be an object of special importance and pride to this town."

"What bloody town?" growled Zoro. "There's no-one around. Anyway, do you know what it says? And are those poneglyphs?"

The old woman raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you seriously asking me if I can read poneglyphs?" she said in an amused tone of voice. "You want to set the World Government on me? No, I'm nowhere that well-read or talented. But these aren't poneglyphs. These are a type of runes that's much less ancient and exclusive, and not that hard to learn. Most historians and archaeologists would know them."

"Oh," said Zoro dispassionately, though he was growing increasingly irritated with the old bat's patronising tone. "And you?"

She spread her hands modestly and gave a gap-toothed smile. "Well, let's see. I believe I can make out the gist of it, if I'm lucky." She took a few short, almost dainty steps toward the dark stone. "Hm-mm, hm-mm… Oh. Sorry, pirate. Seems to be nothing about treasure here, if that's what you're after."

Zoro grunted something, and then noticed that several threads of yarn had wrapped themselves around his swords. It wasn't a huge tangle yet, but it could make trouble later if he didn't take care of it now (he bet it was something the old woman had done on purpose). He started to untangle the threads carefully. The threads looked and felt just like ordinary yarn, black and white and red.

"Up there, if I'm reading this right," the old woman continued while Zoro worked, "I think there's something about the legendary sea of All Blue… possibly a hint of where to look for it…"

Zoro whipped round and stared at the stone. "What?!"

"Don't shout, dearie," she murmured. "Only if I'm getting this right, mind you. And then – hm! – there's something that seems to refer to the so-called Lost History. Oooh, that's dangerous political stuff, that is. And down here there's some stuff about a medicine that can cure everything, but that's probably just rubbish…"

"That does it!" he shouted. "I'm taking that!" He ran over to the stone, grabbed it with both hands and tried to lift it out of the ground. Damn, but it was heavier than it looked. A good part of it seemed to be underground.

"Swords-guy!" cried N-bird, flying down from the top of the monolith and beating her wings frantically. "I mean, Mr. Swordsman!" she amended her mode of address. "Don't do it! She's lying, I'm sure of it! She's just trying to find some way to manipulate you!"

"Maybe so, but I'm willing to take that risk!" he shouted back. "And why would 'Mr. Swordsman' be better than 'Swords-guy', anyway? My name is Lolonoa Zoro! You learned that a long time ago!"

"That wasn't me!"

"I know, but it's close enough!" And come to think of it, how the hell could she have 'flown out of his head' without even knowing his name? These guys were going to confuse him for ever.

"You should try to imagine a way out of this instead!" insisted N-bird. Then he heard U-bird gasp and L-bird squawk "Hey!" in outrage, just as he felt something cold and sharp press into his back through his shirt.

"Let go, Lolonoa," said the old woman in a flat tone, speaking from right behind him. "I never said you could take it."

"Like hell I will!" he barked back over his shoulder.

The old woman looked angry for the first time. "You're welcome to study the stone, if you wish," she hissed, "but you're _not_ allowed to bring it with you! Its place is here. Do you hear me, pirate?"

L-bird shouted: " Don't attack him with his back turned, you cheater!" He dived down at the old woman.

"Why you…" She swatted at him with the other knitting needle, the one that wasn't pressed to Zoro's back. "Get away from me, you nasty little thing!"

"Stay out of this!" Zoro told the little black bird. "I'll handle her." He drew Wadou and turned to face the Dream Dream woman. At the very same time, the clock struck three times, high above them in the tall narrow tower overlooking the square. "I'm taking that stone, old lady," he repeated in a low voice.

Now it was a fight.

xxxxx

Sparks and flashes of violet and blue and grey and gold passed in rapid motion all over the great piazza. The change in pace was obvious: even the birds looking on could probably perceive it right from the start, when the old woman launched a spinning two-arm spear-needle attack she called "Purl Stitch" about twice as fast as her former attacks. From the force of it, too, he was guessing that killing him seemed to have moved from 'something to be definitely avoided' to 'acceptable outcome if necessary' in her mind. But he had no reason to hold back anymore either. He sensed that she had probably been as forthcoming as she'd ever be, with her dropping those little revelations, whether true or not. In any case, Zoro had no more interest in anything she might tell him.

It still didn't feel anything like a dream; in fact the burning sun, the sound of his pulse in his ears, the sweat and drive of battle made it all seem more real for every minute. The things that had been hot and quiet and fuzzy and vague in this town, with its lazy desert winds stirring up what-ifs, maybes and if-onlys, had now all been replaced by hot, sharp outlines and clean straight angles; by steel and sunlight and the flashes of his opponent's movement's. Nothing but _this_ strike and _this_ dodge and _this_ parry. The way it ought to be.

The only not-quite-real part was the lingering feeling of flatness about the old woman herself, but now that she was fighting seriously that too was less apparent. Right now she was telling him – between grunts and gasps and the shouting of attack names – that he ought to understand he could never win against her, because no matter how strong or fast he was she could always imagine herself better; and if he thought it was safe for him to be reckless because he now knew he was in a dream, well then he was sadly mistaken. While skilfully dodging a Two-Cut Flash of his and then going on to perform something she called a "Reverse Stockinette", she pointed out that it wasn't as if he'd wake up from getting 'killed' in here, as if he'd ever count on something like that.

No, she warned while he first dodged and then parried the Reverse Stockinette, his real body may be safe outside this dream but that didn't mean she couldn't shatter his mind if she had to. (She vanished right before another Hawk Wave could reach her, re-appearing close behind him. He sensed her in time to evade the first knitting needle, but the second one grazed his side as he vaulted in the air to charge her from above.) The old woman jumped backwards with a grunt, then shouted, "That was not my intention, Lolonoa." A tone of plea and cajoling mixed with chill steely anger in her voice. "I'd prefer your mind to be whole. But I'm not letting you take that stone."

"Man, you're a bad mind-reader!" Zoro shouted back at her. "Hearing that only makes me want to take it even more!"

"Oh, that's how it sounds, is it? Very well, then! CIRCULAR KNITTING!"

She brought something rope-like out from inside her coat and smacked both ends of the rope onto one end of each knitting needle. They stuck there, so that suddenly she didn't have two knitting-needles but one, soft and bending in the middle where the ropey thing connected them.

Then the old woman started to twirl the new flexible extra-long needle very fast into the air, spinning it faster and faster and tossing all the nearby threads of yarn onto it, where they hung on impossibly. With a wordless "HYAH!" cry, she sent the weapon spinning furiously in his direction . He was going to whack it away, but at the last instant the needle dodged his strokes and in the next second it had surrounded him. It kept spinning around him, faster and faster, knitting its trailing threads at ridiculous speed at the same time. Trying to build up a wall of yarn around him, a wall that was closing in on him; trying to catch him and bury him in thread. Meanwhile he could hardly see the old woman herself anymore behind all that spinning and knitting – only glimpses here and there of a dark stocky figure circling him in the opposite direction, running on the ground.

Of course he could cut through the yarn easily enough, but it wouldn't do much good unless he timed his attack so it would hit the old woman too. Otherwise she'd get a very good chance to stab or spear him under cover of masses of cut-up thread. So before he struck, he needed to calculate exactly where she would be.

"Two Sword Style…" he began – there was another glimpse of her grey head, leaping upwards – TWO-CUT CLIMBING THE TOWER!"

His double slash as he leapt upwards cut right through the circular tube of knitting from bottom to top and also cut through the rope tying the needles together: now there were two of them again. And it hit the old woman as well – but he felt very annoyed with himself when he realised his calculation had been off by just a tiny amount, because the attack didn't hit her full-force in the chest as he'd intended. It might be because of her very fast reaction time, but that was no excuse since he thought he'd taken that in account as well. In any case, she smashed noisily into the ground but was up on her feet very quickly after that. She seemed winded and was groaning but he could see no blood on her. Tough old biddy.

But, he thought as he parried her next furious onslaught of Stockinette Stitch, while she was certainly tough enough and didn't hold back anymore, she was also angrier and more tense, and despite her confident words he could see traces of fear come and go on her face. She wasn't completely sure she would win this, he realised.

She jumped into the air and vaulted backwards, putting more distance between them. He prepared to close in, but before he could, she was crying "ELONGATED STITCH!" and threw one of her knitting-needle-spears straight towards his heart at breath-taking speed. He whacked it away with Wadou easily enough but failed to see the second knitting needle until it was too late. She'd let it shrink to the size of a dagger and thrown it in a spinning, dipping fashion that was harder to predict. It managed to slip through his defences and cut him on his upper left arm.

He cursed at his carelessness, noticing he was bleeding from several small wounds now, bruised from the blunt sides of the knitting-needles, and overall pretty winded. It was high time he ended this.

"Two Sword Style… 72-POUND CANNON!" he cried, using his best two-sword distance attack. The multitude of air slashes converged with accumulated force on his opponent's body before she had the chance to react. She cried out in pain and fell over, rolling as she hit the ground.

There was a wide tear on her coat by the shoulder, and under it a large wound had opened up. Blood ran onto the cobbles where she lay. Her left hand opened and closed in a fist in an impotent gesture.

"You seem to have misunderstood this," he told her, voice slightly raspy.

"I – I'm bleeding," she mumbled, sounding confused and incredulous.

"See, it doesn't matter how strong or fancy your imagination is," he continued. "You may know for sure you can always be stronger than me, and maybe it's your knowing it that makes sure it will happen, too. But the difference is, I know I will win."

Behind him he could hear the birds go wild.

"M-MAN!" U-bird sounded quite overcome with admiration. "What a great line! THAT WAS SUCH A COOL THING TO SAY, SWORDS-GUY!!"

"YEH-EAH! YOU TELL HER, MR. SWORDSMAN!" yelled N-bird.

"AW-AWESOME!" screamed L-bird. "ALL RIGHT!! I want this guy to be part of my gang!!"

Zoro groaned; he would've slapped a hand to his forehead if could have spared the energy. But fatigue was coming over him now, and he leaned forward, holding his knees to steady himself while breathing heavily.

"Huh?!" said U-bird, sounding perplexed. "You have a gang? Since when?"

Tired. She might not be down for good yet. He shouldn't give her the chance to get back up… What was it he'd been fighting for, again?

"Well, sure! You two are part of my gang, right?"

Oh, right. That stone. Okay. So, grab the stone and get the hell out of here. Time was running out.

"Says who? If anything, it's you two who are part of MY gang!"

He started to walk back to the centre of the square.

"Oh yeah?!"

"Yeah!!"

Of course, he still didn't know where the exit was, but he'd get there eventually. He usually did.

"Oh, grow up, boys. In any case, L-bird, he can't be! He's human! Plus, he's our creator! In a way."

Time was running out.

'_If I can only defeat you after it's too late, I'll still lose!'_ Someone had said that once, or something like it. Wait, wasn't it him?

"I don't care about that! He's funny and cool and a great guy except for when he's being a jerk!"

"But what about getting him back to his crew?" asked U-bird, but at that point Zoro managed to zone them out. The old woman was getting back to her feet with a small smile on her lips.

"Bleeding," she said once more. "You're tough, little pirate. Well, that's fixed soon enough." She grabbed a strand of thread from somewhere and twirled it around one finger, then clenched her finger around the new ball of yarn. When she opened her hand the thread had disappeared, and so had the wound on her shoulder. All hints of fatigue were gone from her body, too.

"Why you –! Lousy cheater!" and "Stupid cheater!" squawked the black birds in outrage.

But N-bird cried out despairingly, "HEY! MR. SWOOORDSMAAN!! Why don't you do the same thing yourself? Just pretend you're not wounded and tired, and you won't be!"

She did have a point, he supposed. Maybe he was a bit of a chump for not even trying something like that. But it would be the same thing as trying to imagine Yubashiri unbroken. In a real, hard fight, you got your cuts and your lumps and fought on despite them. You didn't heal up instantaneously. He had neither the will nor the talent for that kind of pretence.

Besides, all the cuts were minor ones so far.

xxxxx

They leapt towards one another simultaneously, swords meeting lance-like needles, and were both thrown back by the force of the impact.

"You really should just go back, young pirate," the old woman told him. Her voice was relaxed again, though she moved with blinding speed across the piazza – much, much faster than he'd have guessed she could when she first started fighting. She still didn't evade all his assaults – and he still managed to block or dodge most of hers, but it was becoming harder by the minute – but either her endurance had increased or her healing ability had speeded up, because attacks that had knocked her over before now only made her grunt and sway on her feet briefly.

"This yarn of mine," she went on calmly while doing a back-flip in the air, "is the very stuff of dreams and stories. You may be able to cut it up, but you can't make it stop moving, stop trying to weave or knit itself around the world." And that was true enough, as he'd already found: more and more of the great square was now occupied by puddles and nests of pieces of thread that moved and coiled like snakes nests, trying to trip him up or entangle him when he passed right by them, when they didn't simply launch themselves at him on the old woman's bidding.

"You don't have the power to make the stories stop moving, little pirate," said the old woman, still smiling, and now there was a glitter of triumph in her eyes: she was sure of victory now, as she hadn't been before. "Fine phrases and confidence won't be enough for you to win this." A sideways slash at his mid-section somehow slipped through his defences, knocking him back and letting the sharp part at the edge of her weapon cut into his stomach, before he managed to knock the needle away and leap at her.

She countered him without much trouble. "Give it up and go back to the Lower City, little pirate," she urged him gently. "I'll dream up a more suitable opponent for you on the Twilight Street. Maybe I'd even make you fight yourself, how about that?"

"Sounds kinda boring," he grunted back, summoning his reserves to parry her thrusts. "No surprises."

He had no idea how much time had passed anymore, no real sense of his condition (which very much _felt_ like his actual body's condition, damnit). The sounds from the bird audience in the background were distant and fractured, he couldn't make them out. But his blood was singing loudly in his ears and he knew he was getting close to hearing the breath of all things. If his opponent were to make herself vanish now, he would be able to sense her presence long before she could touch him.

But maybe she had already guessed that, because when she did disappear next time, it was only to reappear seconds later only about five meters further away, with no real advantage to her in the move. And then she did the same thing again. She was just teasing him now.

"Still…" her voice dropped just a bit, "…there is a way for you to defeat me, young pirate." But then you have to be able to cut through _everything_."

A huge cloud of knitted yarn leapt at him from one direction, as she attacked from the other. He improvised by setting off a Hawk Wave towards the hostile knitting rather than her, leaping high to avoid her strike instead. It worked surprisingly well: almost all the attack yarn was flung far away across the piazza.

"Not just the strands of dream and story," the old woman went on calmly, "which you might think of as nothing but lies and deception. But also the threads of connectedness, of relationships – the loose yarn of ephemeral relationships with strangers, but also the tight net between true companions. Threads of trust and faith, of dependence; threads of destiny, even… Yes, you will have to be the blade that cuts through everything, Lolonoa Zoro. And then you will truly be the greatest swordsman there ever was. But you will also be completely alone."

"You're wrong," he hissed. "You're lying. My teacher taught me differently. The sword that can cut through everything… is also the sword that can cut nothing." He launched another Two-Cut Climbing the Tower at her which she only partially managed to block. She groaned from the impact, falling back. "It all depends on the will of its wielder. You don't have to cut what you don't want to cut. The strong sword protects… as well as destroys."

The old woman laughed as she straightened up and ran towards him again. "Your little dojo-sensei, right? He would say that; wouldn't want to believe otherwise. He would prefer to think in a way that justifies his teaching men to cut up other men for a living. Oh, I grant you that he still gets more and has come further along the road than the great multitude of anyone who's ever picked up a sword. But there is such a long, long stretch of road that he knows nothing about. I daresay there are stretches of that road that even Shanks Redhair, Whitebeard and, yes, even Dracule Mihawk know little about. But _you_…you, young pirate, may get there one day. Or die trying. And if you do – if you will truly know one day how to cut through all of it, how would you be able to justify to yourself not using that strength? Not testing it? If you do abstain from it, will you be sure it's because you've made a choice to put protection ahead of destruction? And not because you simply didn't have what it took?"

"What the hell… do you know?" he panted, breath growing more ragged. "Said it yourself… hahh… you're no swordswoman. Hell, you're… not even a fighter."

She backed away, pausing for breath – a good sign, though he was breathing a good deal heavier than her – but then came at him again with growing speed. "Hnhh… I've seen into the minds of a great many swords-user," she grunted. "And I've got a mind of my own to use, and imagination. I know about minds… I know about minds and will and ambition, young pirate." Somehow he believed her when she said that, even if she was half made up or more. She went on, panting heavily yet not slowing her movements, not slacking off in strength, slowly pressing him back, "Hahh… you carry a demon sword, Lolonoa… and already you have become a wielder of destruction to a rather fearful degree. Don't tell me you can't feel the urge in you to go farther, to follow that blood-red thread to its very end? …And if you reject that urge and push it down, are you sure it isn't for the wrong reasons? Because of fear?"

"Damnit!" he screamed, sheathing Sandai Kitetsu. "I don't have TIME for this philosophical claptrap! And you're still wrong!" He sheathed Wadou as well, then quickly grabbed both spear-like knitting needles, pushed them together and wrenched them from the old woman's grip with such force that she toppled forward from it.

He leapt at her and punched her hard in the face.

She flew about fifty meters, sending up a big cloud of dust as she landed heavily on the pavement. Then she lay there quite still.

xxxxx

"YES! How's _that_ for inventiveness, you old hag!" he heard N-bird yell after a few endless, breathless seconds when nothing stirred in that large empty space.

"He – HE WON!" declared U-bird after a few more seconds had passed without any signs of life from the old woman.

"Of course he did!" shouted L-bird happily. "Toldja! Great fighting, Swords-guy!"

But Zoro wasn't paying them much attention. He was already sprinting towards the block of stone, not letting himself get time to get distracted again. He reached it, grabbed hold of its sides, took a deep breath, and _heaved._ Slowly the stone started to move upwards under the pressure. The ground moaned softly, then more loudly beneath him.

"Don't!" The old woman's voice was barely more than a whisper, weak and broken. "Don't take it, you fool!" she gasped.

He ignored her. More and more of the monolith came out of the ground.

"No… you don't understand… it is the lynchpin…" her voice was slowly growing in strength, tense with urgent pleading. "That stone is what keeps everything here together!" She gasped heavily for breath again, still lying flat on the ground. "Besides the knitting, that is… and that's mostly torn up! If… hahh… if you remove it, you're going to make the whole blessed place fall down!"

"Who gives a shit?" said Zoro, pulling the stone up further – nearly there… "It's just made-up, after all…"

"It's my home, you ignorant lunk of meat!" croaked the old woman.

"LIAR!" shrieked N-bird, while L-bird gave a stricken wail at her choice of words, no doubt remembering how hungry he was.

Then the old woman cried out in anguish as the whole monolith finally left the ground. At the same time, a crack opened in the ground right by Zoro's feet, quickly growing larger. He backed away fast enough, but it was already spreading rapidly all across the centre of the piazza.

"See what you're doing? And this is just the start of it!" screamed the Dream Dream woman, shakily getting to her feet. "Well, be welcome to it then, you thieving pirate! Enjoy your earth-quake, and I hope you'll get stuck in the rubble for days!" Trembling with anger and perhaps fear, she gathered her cloak around herself and took a very unsteady step away from them.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" shouted N-bird.

"It's not like he's the only shadowless dreamer around here!" she yelled back, snapping her fingers and summoning a few strands of yarn to fly into her hand. "I'll just go play with one of the others instead!"

"BLEAH! You LOST, old hag! Admit it!" cried L-bird.

"Yeah! Loser!!" U-bird joined in.

But the old woman didn't even bother with a final repartee above her shoulder. She spun the yarn around her, faster and faster, and then disappeared into thin air without a sound.

Meanwhile, the crack had kept spreading, causing other cracks to appear as well, running along it, at cross-angles, and soon all kinds of directions. The first and still largest crack ran right up to where the bronze statue stood. Then, impossibly, the crack split the statue in half and swallowed one half into the ground, leaving the other still standing.

Cracks had now zig-zagged their way all over the huge piazza, even reaching the iron railings of the Marine building, tearing into them and twisting them into weird, contorted shapes. The ground made an awful grinding, rumbling noise from the intolerable pressures inflicted upon it; but whenever threads of yarn fell into the cracks a particularly unpleasant, high-pitched wailing sound was added as well. Then one crack ran up to the fountain in the very centre of the square, ploughing right through it in mere seconds. Water spouted out all over, fairly drenching Zoro, and then he remembered the other fountain he'd seen down in the Lower City.

Speaking of the Lower City, the cracks had reached the stone steps now, and then there was a deafening DOONN sound of falling great stones tumbling down a hundred metres or possibly more. Zoro was already dry again, and now he realised that his fatigue was pretty much gone too, that he felt no more ache and didn't even seem to be bleeding. Maybe he'd learned the trick after all without meaning to or maybe – more likely – it was because of everything breaking up, breaking down. But he had no idea if it was a good or bad thing, if it meant he was getting closer or not to reality.

Some of the yarn was gathering around him, maybe vengefully, maybe just frightened of falling through the cracks in the ground, but in either case slowing him down. Pieces of glass started to fly through the air (from the palaces? the Marine HQ? he didn't know and didn't care), and then far too many bells were striking at the same time. When he looked up there were large cracks running up through the whole length of the clock-tower. The bells and the clock-face were soon going to fall down and shatter on the cobblestones, he understood, never to tell the right time again.

In the centre of all the destruction, with a monolith twice his size on his back, Zoro was walking – running – walking, then stopping and turning to look around, because _where the hell were the birds_?

Then he heard L-bird scream at him from above and he realised the three of them were sitting atop the monolith itself, and probably had for some time now.

"Hey, don't stop like that! What do you think you're doing?" squawked L-bird, then dived down towards him, picking him on the head with surprising force. "C'mon, stupid Swords-guy! You've gotta get out of here!" He clawed at Zoro's face and shoulders, then pulled at the collar of Zoro's shirt with his claws, furiously flapping as if trying to lift him up.

"He's right, just go, Mr. Swordsman!" N-bird was flapping her wings right in front of him, too, sounding quite anxious.

"But what about you guys?" asked Zoro. It felt like the monolith was getting bigger and heavier for every moment, weighing him down. He was sweating again.

"We'll be fine, we can fly!" shouted L-bird. "And we're small, too! Now go!" He picked at him again.

"Ouch," mumbled Zoro. "But I've got to… bring this with me…" He shook the monolith a bit.

"It's not real, Mr. Swordsman!" cried N-bird. "And even if it were, you won't be able to bring anything through!"

"But… I can't decipher it on my own!" he protested. "I don't know those letters! Robin's got to read it!… Goddamnit, why does this thing keep getting bigger?"

"Hey, Swords-guy… there are cracks all over the houses now, too!" yelled U-bird, spinning around frantically in the air trying to catch as much as possible of what was happening through the rain of gravel, dirt and mortar. "Gaah! It's all breaking up! Even that stone you're carrying has cracks in it!" He too picked at Zoro. Oddly enough it felt more like punches than stings when the birds picked at him. Weird things. "Just RUN, you idiot!" U-bird went on. "You'll get buried here!"

"…Just gimme a minute…" he mumbled, sweating again, gasping for breath. The ground was still shaking and rumbling, the houses were crumbling, the bells of the clock still striking madly. All around him threads of yarn tried to keep him in place, keep him asleep, stopping him from going home.

"Ah? What was that?" He looked around, then turned to U-bird. "Did you say something?"

"Huh? No, why– "

"Thought I heard… something about a swordsman coming… It sounded like you…" He stilled, his eyes widening. Oh.

"Not here after all…" he whispered.

"What?" said the birds in unison.

"…The one I'm to fight… not here after all… but outside…"

And he turned towards a point, a light he could see now, shining in his head, and he needed no-one to tell him where to turn in order to get there. With both arms he carried the stone on his back, and he knew he was an idiot for trying to hold onto it when it was bound to vanish within seconds, but he just couldn't help himself.

"Stupid bloody moron," he mumbled, meaning himself, and smiled a tiny bit before he set his jaw firmly, grasping with his teeth the heavy yarn moving around him, biting through or jerking away the threads so he could move forward.

He climbed upwards or what he thought of as upwards, finding a path where there had only been air before. The houses and the streets and the sun and the walls all turned flat and fell away…

…it was starting to feel colder…

– _I wonder if I made the right choice, there on the twilight street,_ he thought fleetingly –

…and then he finally emerged on a chair in the half-lit galley of the Sunny, groggy and shadowless.

Damn, but he could use a drop of booze right now.

FIN

AUTHOR'S NOTES: And there's the end of it. We now return Pirate Hunter Zoro to his regularly scheduled canon adventures, starting with page 19 of manga chapter 458, which is where this story leaves off. What he heard there in the end was of course Usopp's memorable phrase "A beautiful swordswoman with a lot of meat just came in", tailored to simultaneously wake up the shadowless Luffy, Zoro and Sanji. (And the punch-like effects of the picking birds came from the manga too (page 18, same chapter).

The attack names for Zoro's opponent were all picked up from a Wikipedia article about knitting (which I can't link to here due to formatting issues).

I'd like to thank all the readers who have stuck with me so far, with extra thanks to everyone who have given me feedback on previous chapters. Of course I would be quite happy to receive comments for this final chapter, too. Including critical ones – I tend to correct and revise my fics over time, and even if I don't, thoughtful criticism can always be useful with regards to future writings.

**Edit:** I added an epilogue! Of sorts.


	6. Extra

Eventually, there was quiet

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I wrote this epilogue a good while back, but I wasn't sure if this was what really should happen or merely what I wanted to happen in the aftermath of the story. I hadn't really decided in my mind what the logic behind the dreamscape was, and was reluctant to settle the thing too firmly. Er… I'm not saying I've got it all worked out now, but I guess I've made up my mind when it comes to the epilogue. If this isn't what 'really' happened, I guess you can take it was what Zoro thinks happened. Either way works.

An Extra: Epilogue, of sorts

Eventually, there was quiet.

Piles of rubble, torn-down rocks, gaping holes in the ground and far too many pieces of all kinds of material imaginable in a good-sized town filled the view from one end of the horizon to another. There wasn't a single house left standing, and very few patches of pavement were left intact. Judging from this part at least, this couldn't be called a town any longer. It was nothing but a collection of ruins.

From seemingly out of nowhere a tiny black flying thing appeared in the air above part of the rubble. At first sight you'd have taken it for a soot-flake, but then the vigorous flapping of its wings and its loud, frantic calls said otherwise.

"HEEEY!" the small black thing cried out, as it swerved to and fro over the rubble, looking this way and that. "U-BIRD!! N-BIRD!! GUUUUUYS!!" He swooped low, then flew high again, scooting over to another pile, close by. "ARE YOU THEEERE? HEY, GUYS!!"

There was a rustle of gravel, and then the tip of an orange-and-black-wing became visible under some broken rooftiles.

"Stop shouting…" a voice said weakly.

Another voice croaked, nearby, "Leave me alone, I don't even exist anymore… and anyway I've got a headache." A few black feathers flapped from the midst of a bundle of torn and dirty curtains, in a fairly lacklustre fashion.

"Me too," moaned the orange bird.

L-bird landed right next to them, on top of a broken ornamental china dog. "There you are!" he said, smiling sunnily. "You should have said so earlier!"

Moans, groans and grunts met him, as his two friends slowly hauled themselves upright and freed themselves from the rubble.

Then they were sitting in quiet for a few moments, looking at the scene around them. N-bird was attempting to clean her feathers.

"This is incredible," said U-bird, sounding almost though obviously not completely dumbstruck. "It's all broken. Everything."

"What a guy, huh?" remarked N-bird. "He strolls into town and a few hours later the whole damn place is completely smashed up."

"Well… it's no skin off _my_ beak," said U-bird. "I'm not from around here…"

"But how come we're still alive?" said N-bird wonderingly. "If he really woke up…How come we're still here?"

U-bird shook his head, looking stumped. "I don't get it either," he said. "What do you think happened, L-bird? Did you see anything?"

"Yeah, at first I didn't know if I was alive or not," said L-bird brightly. "So I thought, 'Well then, I'd better imagine I'm alive', and then I was! And then I went looking for you guys, and I imagined you were alive too, and you were!" He grinned widely. "Hee hee hee! I'm getting really good at this!"

N-bird gave up trying to smooth her feathers down and flew up to perch on a huge block of marble. "Well," she said thoughtfully, "I think we're alive because Mr. Swordsman – Lolonoa Zoro – really doesn't want us to vanish into nothing. Even if we're only imaginary to him. Because he wants us to be strong enough to make it on our own. That's what _I _think."

"Either way… what do we do now?" said U-bird practically. "Where can we go?"

L-bird's eyes were shining, not in that hugely bright way they did when he saw something really cool but in a more low-key, yet still glittering manner. "We can go wherever we want," he said. "And we can do whatever we want, too!"

"And be whoever we want…?" wondered U-bird.

"Sure! But right now, I'm hungry! Let's go find S-bird!"

"S-bird?" said N-bird, frowning. "But… he isn't…"

"…Oh! I see!" U-bird exclaimed, his eyes widening. "So we'll just imagine S-bird and then he'll be here, right? All right, I can do this! Leave it to me!" He closed his eyes in concentration.

N-bird looked from one black bird to the other. "Do you two really think that's something we can do? That it's going to work?" Cautious scepticism mingled with growing hope and enthusiasm in her eyes.

"Uh-huh!" asserted L-bird, nodding happily.

U-bird opened his eyes. "Okay, got it! Let's go find a pond!"

"A pond? Okay!" said L-bird, flying up into the air.

"Wait a minute…" said N-bird, not following this.

U-bird left the ground as well. "I figure S-bird's got to be a duck of some kind," he explained, beating his wings impatiently as he looked down at N-bird.

"A DUCK?! How's that?"

"I dunno… it just seems to fit, y'know?"

"Right," said L-bird, nodding. "Come on, N-bird! Help us find the pond!"

"You two, I swear…" grumbled N-bird, taking to the air as well. "Well, let's at least make him into a wild duck, so he'll be able to fly…"

And the wind shifted, bringing with it the salty tang of the sea, just as Zoro's three little birds flew high up into the sunlight to leave the city of rubble behind. They made for the great unknown beyond it, on the quest for a duck pond they were certain they would find.

Within two weeks, the stonemasons and the carpenters, the bell-founders and the clockmakers all working together had the clocktower up and running again. And once the clocktower was back, the city could slowly begin to form itself anew around it. Waiting for the next errant dreamer to wander in and give their place some meaning.

Maybe.


End file.
